Monday, September 24

Update: the wave of cheers and applause by Columbia University students to Ahmadinejad's speech leave me with an appalling sense of nausea, revulsion and despair.

Words. Fail. Me.

"...the new Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has kicked off a popular "Iran-loves-Jews" campaign that will include a sensitive re-writing of the laws to accommodate religions other than Islam. He explained, "With the Zionist entity out of the way, the Iranian government will tone down its violent and threatening rhetoric, dismantle its nuclear program, and stop funding Hezbollah and other terrorist groups. As a matter of fact, I might even resign my position and award the presidency to someone else. Do you think Schwarzenegger is available?"

"A spokesperson for Hezbollah stated that Iran's proposal wouldn't matter. "We don't need the funding because we no longer have any reason to exist. We disposed of our weapons, and will now re-focus on opening a chain of pizzerias. You just can't get decent pizza around here, and we're going to change that."

"He was joined by a former high-ranking member of Hamas: "Yeah, we also pretty much accomplished what we wanted. We'll get together for reunions now and then, but otherwise, we'll just settle down into normal lifestyles. You know... mortgage, house, bowling, PTA meetings..."

(Yes, this is a segment of a previous post - but what with Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad speaking at Columbia, at the United Nations and the National Press Club, etc, well, "the 'troofer' shall set you free," right? Oh, wait... or was that "work shall set you free?" Well, no doubt the Iranian leader has his own thoughts about that).Click here for more posts about Iran.

"In pondering the behavior of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, I cannot help but think of the 500,000 plastic keys that Iran imported from Taiwan during the Iran-Iraq War of 1980-88. At the time, an Iranian law laid down that children as young as 12 could be used to clear mine fields, even against the objections of their parents. Before every mission, a small plastic key would be hung around each of the children’s necks. It was supposed to open for them the gates to paradise.

“In the past,” wrote the semi-official Iranian daily Ettela’at, “we had child-volunteers: 14-, 15-, and 16-year-olds. They went into the mine fields. Their eyes saw nothing. Their ears heard nothing. And then, a few moments later, one saw clouds of dust. When the dust had settled again, there was nothing more to be seen of them. Somewhere, widely scattered in the landscape, there lay scraps of burnt flesh and pieces of bone.” Such scenes could henceforth be avoided, Ettela’at assured its readers. “Before entering the mine fields, the children [now] wrap themselves in blankets and they roll on the ground, so that their body parts stay together after the explosion of the mines and one can carry them to the graves.(...)"The western media showed little interest for the Basiji – perhaps because journalists could not be present during the hostilities or perhaps because they did not believe the reports. Such disinterest has persisted to this day. The 5000 dead of Saddam Hussein’s poison gas attack on the Kurds of Halabja have remained in our memory. History has forgotten the children of the minefields.

"Today, however, Ahmadinejad appears in public in his Basiji uniform. During the war, he served as one of the Basiji instructors who turned children into martyrs."

This is what the man who is to speak at Columbia University directly, personally represents.Read the rest.

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